As a renowned manufacturing city in China, Qingdao has been ramping up efforts to develop industrial internet, using digital technology to enhance the quality, efficiency and intelligence of traditional manufacturing, building industrial internet platforms, and creating new business models such as mass customization and shared manufacturing.

The city aims to foster four 10-billion-yuan ($1.4 billion) industrial internet industry clusters and incubate 20 large companies with a market value of one billion yuan by 2022, local officials said.

China's major high-speed rail maker CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co is just one example of a company which is taking full advantage of the possibilities brought about by industrial internet.

On its car body production line, welding data is uploaded to the management center every 0.5 seconds.

An employee works on the production line of CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co. [Photo provided by CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co]

"The digital management system is connected to more than 100 welding machines, and real-time control is possible for each key welding seam of the high-speed train car body," said Chi Haohan, an engineer at the company.

Wang Chuan, chief engineer of the company's information system operation, said that CRRC Qingdao Sifang has developed a fault prediction model for key components of high-speed trains by using big data mining technology and artificial intelligence algorithms, which can predict and warn of problems and provide maintenance suggestions.

Over 500 companies in Qingdao are upgrading their production lines using industrial internet platforms to boost smart manufacturing, local officials said.

The coastal landscape of Qingdao, Shandong province [Photo by Guo Xulei/Xinhua]

To date, Qingdao has identified eight industrial internet platforms. Haier's CosmoPlat boasts over 34 million users, 43,000 enterprises, and over 3.9 million ecological resources, ranking first among similar platforms according to a list compiled by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The city has also been ramping up efforts to promote "new infrastructure" construction, including 5G, internet of things, smart logistics, and more, to pave the way for the development of industrial internet.